The Two Towers
J.R.R. Tolkien
1955 First U.S. Edition
Houghton Mifflin Company
Boston
ISBN: N/A
Hardcover in dust-jacket
352 pp.
Cover illustration by Walter Lorraine
Hammond Page Ref.: pp. 100-102
Tolkien Collector Ref.: Issue no. 21, pp. 20-27 & no. 22, pp. 29-30 (Frisby)*
Notes
Typeset as for the Allen & Unwin 1954 First Edition.
Published April 21, 1955.
Stated Print History:
1st Impression: 1954 – 1,000 copies
2nd Impression: 1955 – 1,210 copies
3rd Impression: 1955 – 1,800 copies
4th Impression: 1956 (does not exist)
5th Impression: 1957 – 1,000 copies
6th Impression: 1959 – 1,500 copies
7th Impression: 1960 – 1,000 copies
8th Impression: 1961 – 1,000 copies
9th Impression: 1962 – 2,000 copies
10th Impression: 1963 – 2,500 copies
11th Impression: 1965 – 2,500 copies
12th Impression: 1965 – 1,250 copies
13th Impression: 1966 – 5,000 copies
Two variants have been noted for the 3rd Impression:
- Regular title page.
- Cancel title page (title-leaf is attached to a short stub).
Two variants have been noted for the 5th Impression (priority unknown):
- Only ‘Printed in Great Britain‘ on copyright page (identical to copyright pages for 2nd–6th Impressions).
- Identical copyright page text to 1st Impression except for the copyright date: 1955 (instead of 1954).
A 1st Impression dust-jacket can be recognized by a very small defect on its front cover. There is a little nick in the right side of the ‘r’ in ‘Towers’ approximately .6 cm above its foot.
After the 5th Impression the dust-jacket artwork was changed from dark blue to jet black (a very subtle difference).
Excluding the 2nd variant of the 5th Impression, the 2nd-6th impressions (1955-1959) lack any statement of year or impression number on their copyright page (the 1st Impression states the year published on the title page and copyright page). The first nine impressions thus were bound in the US from imported British sheets. Consequently, each US impression has a corresponding UK impression.
The report of this edition as a possible ‘Christmas Extra’ from the Science Fiction Book Club (mentioned in Hammond’s Bibliography, p. 102) has been found to be erroneous, referring in fact to the Reader’s Union 1960 Book Club Edition. See TolkienGuide.US for further detail.
Jacket price: $5.00; $5.95 (11th Impression).
*Steven M. Frisby put together a very useful guide entitled ‘Identifying First Edition Printings of the Houghton Mifflin Lord of the Rings Part II’ which was printed in The Tolkien Collector, Issue no. 21, pp. 20-27 in September, 1999. Further information can also be found in plenty at TolkienBooks.net.
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